The proposed memorial for the fallen soldiers of Garner speaks to visitors through basic elements of human experience: scale, permanence, movement, and the passage of time. The memorial is intended to be encountered at various distances through a processional sequence that slowly unveils different levels of understanding. The focal point of the memorial is a monumental weathering steel abstract volume that stands as a significant landmark in the landscape, clearly visible from the road and park entrance. From a distance, the object is striking against its context, but enigmatic. As visitors approach the memorial, a tree lined sloped pathway is revealed, drawing them down into an outdoor room beneath the iron red volume. Here, visitors discover the form to be an open box that is a window to the sky, reorienting their posture of remembrance towards the heavens. In this outdoor room, secluded from the surrounding distractions, visitors are given space for stillness and reflection, encountering name plaques for each fallen soldier permanently mounted into the stone and concrete walls and accompanied with historical information about each war. Beyond this room of remembrance, there are graciously inclined steps with benches to provide a place of rest, gathering, and conversation. At the very top of the steps, at the level of the field, are flagpoles dedicated to each of the armed forces and for North Carolina and the United States. Large ceremonial gatherings would be conducted here encompassing the space of the field as part of the memorial.

Materially, the palette simultaneously evokes a sense of permanence and change. Stone and concrete walls support the weathered steel box which, through the natural process of oxidation, is ever changing - expressive of the passage of time. The oxidated surface produces run-off from rain that stains red the pavement below. The rain water is diverted into rills, recording the cycle of rain returning moisture to the earth as soldiers have bled on the battlefield.